ASIC Bans Fin Wis Adviser

The regulator notes Willmott is a director of Polaris Financial Services Pty Ltd and was an authorised representative of dealer group firm, Financial Wisdom Limited, from 12 November 2015 until 10 August 2017.

Falsely declared to have witnessed signatures on Death Benefit Nomination Forms and arranged for others to backdate and falsely witness these forms

Failed to provide Statements of Advice to clients

ASIC says its investigation followed a notification from Financial Wisdom and that Willmott has the right to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of its decision.

ASIC First

ASIC Commissioner, Danielle Press

In other news from ASIC, the regulator has announced it has cancelled – for the first time – the licences of two NSW-based financial services providers for failure to obtain membership of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority scheme.

The two firms are Sydney Business Accounting and A G Calleia & Co, whose licenses were both cancelled in mid-February 2019.

ASIC notes that all AFS licensees, Australian credit licensees, superannuation trustees and other financial firms that provide services to retail clients were required to become members of AFCA by 21 September 2018.

ASIC Commissioner, Danielle Press, said these cancellations are significant because this is the first time ASIC has cancelled licences for non-compliance with AFCA membership requirements.

OK – you lose your license for failing to obtain membership of AFCA. I get it.
But you don’t lose your license if you are a bank and charge dead people fees, take fees and provide no service, take fees without client authority (theft), as a trustee, fail to act in the best interests of beneficiaries, rig the LIBOR rate, ignore your AML obligations, fail to remediate affected customers, etc. I don’t get it.
Actually, I do. In practice, ASIC applies the law differently to different AFSL holders. Not acceptable, and needs to change. ASIC continues it’s long track record of being an ineffective regulator.